"I suppose my forefathers used to get all their meals there," said poor Emily Shaw, who has at all times a gentle, sad way of speaking, and then seemed on the verge of uncomplaining tears, "but I don't quite feel competent to undertake it now. It looks to me as if the kettles might be hard to lift." Emily glanced at her hands and wrists as she spoke. Emily's hands and arms are very small and bony, as she is in her general construction, though she is tall. The little chamber which she inhabited during the preparation for the centennial was very hot in those midsummer days, and her face was always suffused with a damp pink when she came out of it; but she uttered no word of complaint, not even when they took down her marble slabs and exposed the yawning mouths of the old fireplaces again. All she said was once in a deprecatory whisper to me, to the effect that she was a little sorry to have strangers see her house looking so, but she supposed it was interesting. We expected a number of strangers. Mrs. Sim White's brother, who had gone to Boston when he was a young man and turned out so smart, being the head of a large dry-goods firm, was coming, and was to make a speech; and Mr. Elijah M. Mills, whose mother's people came from Linnville, was to be there, as having a hereditary interest in the village. Of course, everybody knows Elijah M. Mills. He was to make a speech. Mrs. Lucy Beers Wright, whose aunt on her father's side, Miss Jane Beers, used to live in Linnville before she died, was to come and read some selections from her own works. Mrs. Lucy Beers Wright writes quite celebrated stories, and reads them almost better than she writes them. She has enormous prices, too, but she promised to come to the centennial and read for nothing; she used to visit her aunt in Linnville when she was a girl, and wrote that she had a sincere love for the dear old place. Mrs. Jameson said that we were very fortunate to get her.